Let us not
forget Corrections Officer Jayme Lee Biendl of the Washington State
Department of Corrections, Washington, was killed in the line of duty on
January 29, 2011. We will also remember her on her birth date, February 6 every year. Let us honor this fallen
prison guard by remembering how she lived on this earth and treasure her
memories.
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Correctional Officer Jayme
Biendl
(February 6, 1976 to
January 29, 2011)
[PHOTO SOURCE: http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=64929973]
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Serial
Rapist Gets Sentence Dropped For Murder Of Corrections Officer
By Holly Matkin
2
days-edited
Byron Scherf
was already serving a life sentence when he murdered Monroe State Prison Correctional
Officer Jayme Biendl.
Everett, WA –
A convicted rapist and kidnapper who murdered a Monroe Prison correctional
officer as an inmate will no longer face execution for his brutal crime.
Monroe State
Prison Corrections Officer Jayme Biendl, 34, was strangled to death by inmate
Byron Scherf on Jan. 29, 2011, The Herald reported.
Scherf, who
was serving a life sentence for kidnapping and raping a real estate agent
outside Spokane, confessed to the murder, and said that he deserved to be
executed for killing Corrections Officer Biendl.
His criminal
history stretched back to 1973, when he broke into a residence as a minor, The Herald reported.
Five years
later, he picked up a hitchhiker and took her into the woods, where he held her
down at knife point.
He kidnapped
another woman in Tacoma in 1981, raped her, and doused her blanket-wrapped body
in gasoline.
Although he
set her on fire, the woman managed to escape.
Scherf was
ultimately paroled, but struck again in October of 1995, when he kidnapped and
raped a real estate agent in Spokane.
He told his
victim that he planned to bury her in the woods, but she also managed to
survive.
Scherf was
sentenced to life in prison in that case.
The convicted
rapist told detectives that he became upset with Corrections Officer Biendl
after she allegedly made a comment about his wife that he considered to be
disrespectful, according to the Associated Press.
He said he
initially planned to hurt her, but that he decided to kill her inside the
prison chapel as the day went on.
Correctional
Officer Biendl tried to reason with him, and told him to remember that he has a
wife to think about, Scherf said.
“[Her eyes]
just got as big as silver dollars” when he attacked her, he added.
According to
Scherf, Correctional Officer Biendl fought for her life – kicking, biting, and
fighting with him for several minutes.
Ultimately,
he grabbed the cord to an amplifier and wrapped it around her neck, then used
about “75 percent” of his strength to pull the cord tight, he explained.
As they
continued to fight, Scherf tore Correctional Officer Biendl’s radio microphone
from her shoulder.
She tried to
use the radio on her hip to call for help, but Scherf said he wasn’t sure the
device was even working.
“Help, help,
please help,” she said, according to Scherf.
In 2013, a
jury convicted him of first-degree aggravated murder in less than a half hour, KIRO reported.
Within three
hours, they recommended that he be sentenced to death.
"I've
been waiting 837 days exactly to hear those words that he's got the death
penalty," Correctional Officer Biendl's sister, Lisa Hamm, told KIRO at
the time. "And I'm going to continue to count, until he's finally
dead."
But the
Washington Supreme Court struck down the death penalty in October of 2018,
ruling it unconstitutional, KING reported.
As a result,
Snohomish County Superior Court Judge George Appel had no choice but to
sentence Scherf to life in prison for Correctional Officer Biendl’s murder.
“The Supreme
Court has spoken,” Appel said in court. “You will not be punished for the
killing of Jayme Biendl.”
The slain
correctional officer’s family denounced the Supreme Court’s ruling, and said
that justice was not served.
“We are angry
about the Supreme Court ruling,” the family said in a statement to The Herald.
“Jayme’s
murderer was serving life without parole when he strangled her. This literally
means that he got away with murder of an innocent person and that action has no
consequence for him.”
Even Scherf
seemed to recognize that a life sentence was not a punishment – he specifically
addressed the issue with police during his confession in February of 2011.
“If I get a
life sentence and she’s [dead] then there’s no punishment attached to it
because I already have a life sentence,” he told them, according to The Herald.
“I ask you to
charge Aggravated 1st Degree Murder [w/the death penalty] at my arraignment I
WILL plead guilty!” he wrote to prosecutors days later.
That didn’t stop Scherf from appealing his
conviction later, however.
Washington State Senator Keith Wagoner has
introduced a new bill in an attempt to put capital punishment back on the table
for convicted murderers who kill someone while serving time, but Senate Law and
Justice Committee Democratic chairman Jamie Pederson has already struck it
down.
“I don’t have any interest in trying to
re-institute the death penalty for a fourth time,” Pederson told The Herald,
adding that the bill won’t even get a hearing. “We are going to hear a bill to
abolish the death penalty.”
Wagoner said that he is disappointed – but not
surprised – by Pederson’s reaction.
“I know that this is a very divisive issue that
many people feel very strongly about, but I believe there must be consequences
for incarcerated individuals who commit murder,” he said. “I believe justice
wasn’t served in this case.”
“There are no consequences for
continuing to hurt people. There [are] supposed to be consequences for heinous
behavior,” Wagoner continued. “Our corrections officers are no longer protected
and neither are the other offenders.”
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